Evidence linking al-Qaeda to Iran delays September 11 trial

A German judge has delayed his verdict in the trial in Hamburg of an accused accomplice of the September 11 hijackers to consider testimony from a new witness: a former Iranian spy who claims to have evidence that links Iran to al-Qaeda.

The witness also suggests that Iranian agents had advance knowledge of the September 11 plot.

The last-minute evidence adds another twist to the trial of Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan charged with providing logistical help to the Hamburg-based hijackers who carried out the attacks in New York and Washington.

The case against Mzoudi faltered last month when the judge released him on bail, ruling that evidence from an unnamed al-Qaeda figure in US custody cast doubt on whether the accused knew about the hijack plot in advance.

But now the judge has accepted a request to hear two federal investigators testify about the new evidence instead of issuing a verdict on Wednesday as planned. Prosecutors have also asked for a 30-day delay in the trial while they evaluate the credibility of the new witness, a spokeswoman for prosecutors said.

The unidentified witness is described as a former Iranian intelligence agent. Last week he walked into the Berlin offices of the federal investigative police, the BKA, saying he had evidence that the Lebanon-based Hezbollah and its Iranian intelligence allies had ties to some September 11 plotters, sources said.

The Iranian said he had fled Iran in July 2001 and had tried to warn US and French intelligence agents about a big impending attack.

He alleged in a statement to BKA agents that Osama bin Laden's network assigned Mzoudi to handle logistics and communications for the September 11 plot.

The former spy also claimed Mzoudi spent time in Iran, where he was in contact with Saif al-Adel, bin Laden's former chief of security.

Although the witness did not accuse Iran of direct involvement in the September 11 plot, his account - which detailed al-Adel's supposed role overseeing key planning cells in Syria, Germany and Spain - claimed that Iranian spies had advance knowledge of the attacks.

The former spy also provided an email, purportedly sent last month by a top Iranian contact in Iran's Quds intelligence agency, saying that al-Adel ordered al-Qaeda operatives to kill Mzoudi upon learning of his release on bail, sources said.